


What We Have

by ActuallyAndroid



Category: Undertale (Video Game)
Genre: Angst, F/M, Far Future, Meridian, Physics, Plot, Plot Twists, Post-Pacifist Route, Reader Is Not Frisk, Reader-Insert, Science, Science babble, Scientist Sans, a plot that is a little different, dead af, i mean yes please amirite, only way this bitch is getting revived is through commissions lol, reader is a scientist, reader is smart, sans calls u doc
Language: English
Status: In-Progress
Published: 2016-01-10
Updated: 2016-04-17
Packaged: 2018-05-13 02:17:24
Rating: Teen And Up Audiences
Warnings: Creator Chose Not To Use Archive Warnings
Chapters: 5
Words: 10,411
Publisher: archiveofourown.org
Story URL: https://archiveofourown.org/works/5690845
Author URL: https://archiveofourown.org/users/ActuallyAndroid/pseuds/ActuallyAndroid
Summary: <blockquote class="userstuff">
              <p>“this ain't gonna work pal.”<br/>“It has to work.”</p><p>Eighty years after the arrival of monsters on the surface - and with the unexpected help of magic, science has taken big leaps.<br/>In due course, 'MERIDIAN' has become the climax of their combined work, a project build specifically with the purpose of sending one lucky human to the ends of the universe and back.</p><p>Congratulations, because you're that lucky human. Make sure to send a few postcards if you get there alive.</p>
            </blockquote>





	1. Chapter 1

'MERIDIAN'', was what the plaque said.

The structure was huge; colossal. Ten times bigger and more-so than any man-made (and you'd used this word lightly) building you'd ever thought you'd see.

It was shaped like a figure eight, with two main sections left to right called the 'encoder and 'decoder' section respectively: big bulbous chambers that expanded at the centre and met with the platform you were standing on.

The only reason you'd known what was on the inside was because you'd overseen the blueprints yourself- and all of their countless scribbled drafts. From the outside, all you could see was the reflective casing, which alone took many years of planning to formulate – and was still perhaps the least impressive part of the construction.

The inside was where the real intricacies, lay. Where all the atoms had to be frozen to temperatures of absolute zero for stability, and all waves were blocked out by materials that would have seemed impossible only even fifteen years ago. In only a few weeks, this project would be open to the public – but until then it was just you and a group of other scientists, and the unmistakable pride you'd all felt towards it.

This project, that has taken over half a century to create – and had to be split between several of the greatest minds of the generation was finally finished. You were aware that you were lucky to see it come alive in the span of your life time. 

Briefly, you remembered you were not alone – and you politely turned to gauge the expression of a colleague who'd stood beside you the entire time.

Sans had his full body hazard suit draped around him – making it difficult to see his reaction without blatantly staring. Awkwardly, you took note of the way it fell about his feet instead, and remembered with fondness that the first time you'd seen him inside it you spent a good ten minutes just getting the giggles out.  
To put It bluntly, he did not fit into it very well; because the suit wanted to compensate for some two feet of height that he simply did not have. 

Suddenly he spoke, and even through the fuzzy speakers in your suits the world almost fell solemn with his words.

“this ain't gonna work, pal.”

It wasn't the first time he'd expressed his brutally honest opinion on the subject and as a result, his words were slightly tempered in urgency.

You did little in response at first but shift your weight on the spot.

“It has to work.”

This was more than just you whole life's effort. People old enough to be your great grandparents had started working on this project - knowing they were going to die before its completion.  
Maybe he couldn't understand the gravity of the situation because a human life was so short compared to the one of a monster, but the meaning of their sacrifices had not lost its impact on you.

You were not about to ditch their passions in favour of a few numbers that wouldn't add up.

“And when it does, we'll be collecting our Nobel physics prizes before the end of the year.

He was quiet for a second.

“and if it doesn't, we'll have to make do mourning over an empty casket.”

His words were bitter, and stung you in the back of your throat like a sickly lunch that didn't sit well in your stomach. 

You had not wanted to remind him that the stakes of this were higher than your own life. He was already discouraged.

But regardless, you couldn't shake the thoughts from your own head. You were reminded many times that if this project were to fail, the whole thing would be scrapped, and both humans and monsters would have to accept that even with their combined powers they could do nothing to see the ends of the universe they so desperately wanted to see.

“Come on Sans, cheer up.”

You knew the pep talk fell flat without even seeing his face, but you did not mind. It was aimed at yourself more than it was at him anyway.

“The journalists from Time will be here any second, and I'm counting on you to sound like you have no doubts about whether this is going to work.”

Again, you words appeared to have missed the mark completely, until you both stepped out of the decontaminating chamber and took your suits off.

His smile seemed so real that if you did not know better, you would have accepted it as genuine.

As it was, it was enough to make the walk back to elevator a little more lively, because when Sans was willing to make small talk he proved to be one of the better colleagues to talk to as a friend, about topics that had nothing to do with science and everything to do with petty things that the outside world could care less about.

Therefore, when you saw your reflection in the elevator mirror – outstretched on its wall as if it was ready for the tourists already, you also found yourself to be smiling.


	2. Chapter 2

It was fun to be in newspapers.  
You were not about to lie to yourself, because the ego boost from knowing your family and friends were reading about your achievements in the Time magazine as if you were some sort of prodigy was not something you didn't appreciate.

Still, you had thought it was an enormous disservice to the many monsters and humans working on the project to go to these interviews alone, even if Sans had insisted that he would really, really, rather leave media issues to you.

As such, he was sitting on the arm chair next you, completely lax and with little care for the fact you were getting interviewed by one of the most influential people working in media.

The man (an older and clean gentleman who went by the name of Marcus if you remembered correctly) seldom broke eye contact, and you found yourself having to stare right back.  
You had known going in that Times favoured a more intimate and – personal approach to interviews, but it was painfully clear they wanted to keep anyone else out of the conversation.

They treated you like the face of the project, and although it was flattering, it was hard not to start thinking of it as a burden others expected you to shoulder alone.

“Alright, we certainly both know that the outside of the structure is quite deceptively simple, but I'd like to know more about what is inside. I mean, even theoretically, manipulating dark energy is definitely not a simple task to do, and it was perhaps still one of the more basic tasks that you were faced with.”

“Oh yeah - um, I mean dark matter is another name for the properties of empty space, so all we had to do in terms of that was to manufacture it and create a perfect vacuum without interference from anything, like uh, waves – but dark energy is something else.”

You were told not to look in that direction, but subconsciously you focused on the camera angled slightly to your left side - and your attention was thrown for enough time for Marcus to gesture for you to continue.

“Still, it's necessary. We're using a combination of monster magic and this 'dark energy' to transform matter into a series of leptons and quarks, 'coding' matter into combinations of ones and zeroes, like you would see in a binary code.”

Again, he encouraged you to continue, and although you wanted turn to see what Sans had to say, you doubted it would have been of any more significance than a shrug.

“Because all leptons can not be broken down any further, and are essentially the same everywhere – it means that as this floating 'code' we can exist everywhere at once, giving the impression that not only can we move infinitely fast, but also teleport matter anywhere - without destroying the original copy.”

You watched him begin to speak, and gladly took this moment as a breather, breaking eye contact almost a little to eagerly. The most Sans could muster up the effort to do was open one of his eyes to let you know that he was at least half paying attention and -  
oh there it was.

A nice shrug.

“It's almost remarkable how simple the process sounds – but it's not hard to understand the technicalities were harder to apply then the theory. What was the biggest challenge you faced as engineers?”

This was a question you practised and saw coming, so you found you did not have to stumble to answer it.  
Your voice came out smooth and precise.

“Well, potentially the most difficult part of this whole project was, effectively finding out how to turn off gravity in an enclosed space without tearing apart the fabric of space-time itself, and the second hardest part after that was finding out how to turn it back on again.”

The journalist looked genuinely amused, and it was significantly difficult to tell whether he was a closet science nerd or just really good at feigning interest.

“So how did you get to the bottom of this?”

An inward cringe pulled the muscles of your goosebumps almost up to working condition. Monster magic was Sans' area of study - but you doubted he'd suddenly want to push himself into the conversation.

Remaining true to your assumptions, Sans had no helpful words for you when you waited for him to chip in, and you found you had to fire ad-lib about a subject you really only knew the bare bones of.

“Actually, to be honest… We didn't. This was where our indispensable monster magic came in, because although we couldn't disable gravity without tearing apart space time, magic let us tear a hole into it relatively safely.”

“Ah yes. Maybe you could tell me more about the involvement of magic? What could it achieve that science could not?”

Of course, a question would have been much more accurate answered by an actual monster, such as the one sitting right next to you – but you had lost hope sometime during the last question that he was even going to appear in the interview.

“By definition, monster magic is...”

There was a pause.  
You knew this – of course you knew this, but that damn camera was throwing you off, and Marcus would just not break eye contact, and the longer the silence was the more -

“the act of disobeying the laws of physics.”

At first you thought maybe the voice was coming from your head, but a double take revealed that it had a source, and the source was the skeleton sitting next to you.

Briefly, you glanced at Marcus despite the fact you knew what you'd see. He was frozen in time, his glazed eyes still staring at where yours were staring back only a second or two ago.

“Thanks pal.” You muttered, swinging back on your chair to look more in his direction.

Whenever you sat in this 'space' he created, the silence was always the first thing you noticed. It did not ever appear to bother Sans, but humans always had processes going on inside their bodies - like the rumble of their stomach and the blood rushing trough their ears.

When there was no noise pollution, you could hear yourself. Just - listen, to your own quick beating pulse and the intermittent (and embarrassing) wet gurgles your intestines were insistent on making.

You waited for him to say it was no problem – but when his lack of response dragged out for just a little too long, you remembered he was still angry.

He was still mad at you for accepting something you considered to be an honour. Mad at something irrational.

You refused to turn around – and for a second you thought he was just going to press play on the little space-time control button he had in his head until his jaw twitched as though he was going to speak.

You sighed to cover up the bowel sounds you felt sure were coming, and kept staring at him pointedly, expecting him to spit it out.

Eventually, he broke.

“is there anything i can still say to convince you this is a bad idea?”

His voice was heavy – as it had been for the past few week, and you could tell what he was referring to almost immediately.

You wished you could offer him more, but the most honest response you could give him was to shake you head lowly.  
Politely, you waited a few more seconds before turning around - and assuming the same position you were in before he stopped the time. You were not too worried about accuracy, the people behind development would probably just assume filming error and fix it in editing.

There were three more heartbeats.

“Monster magic is the act of disobeying known rules of physics and reality,” you reiterated - once you heard the birds outside singing again.


	3. Chapter 3

You and Sans went back to your study after the interview.  
Before you ran your fingerprint along the scanner to open the door, you'd looked at the it and saw your name – engraved neatly onto a metallic plate.

It was not odd to see your name written so professionally onto something anymore. During the first few weeks, you had to resist the quiet craving to run your fingers along the sharp edges almost every time you wanted to come into your office; now, even your gaze was proving lacklustre.

You opened the door, and the both of you walked in with heavy steps, until eventually you slumped down onto your chair.

A wave from your hand indicated for Sans to grab a seat from his study, but after a few seconds of him ignoring you and standing around behind yours, you decided to wheel the nearest one in for him yourself.

“thanks,” he said, once you did, and put his (largely oversized) lab coat on its back.

You didn't take much note of his voice. 

A thick, ominous pile of papers was sat on top of your desk. You didn't really have the strength to dig right into it, so you grabbed a single sheet from the top and skim read it, signing here – and there, and there again before getting bored and putting it away.

“Could you hit the blinds?” You asked, when you realised how murky and dim your study was. You had to wait a little for him to do anything, and even then Sans heaved a good sigh to let you know this was a significant effort to him, before hitting a switch that was within arm's length. The room flooded with light.

“That's much better,” you said, although you were not so sure. Now you could see the specks of dust twisting about in the air and sitting on the top of your monitor.  
Furthermore, you got a full view of how disorganised your desk was, with papers lying about everywhere and odd bits of stationary here and to the side. The only things that were in their place were two black pens, standing up neatly in a blue cup.

“Sorry about the mess though.”

You didn't mean it. Last time you payed a visit to Sans' study it was twice as bad in the very least.

In an attempt to put off the papers lying quite prominently within view, you turned to look at whatever Sans had been staring at and found it to be a few subtle little 'congratulations' cards – all lined up in a row on the top shelf.

“The third one along is from you,” you reminded him.

He remembered.

He handed that one to you a while ago, a few days after the momentous occasion that included turning the prototype construction on for the first time, and watching everyone start to whoop and lose their minds in a burst of cheer when it worked like it was supposed to.

It was not difficult to understand their joy. At that moment, parallel universes not only stopped being science fiction but started being reachable. Palpable.  
Even Sans himself was feeling the excitement in the air that night, when the most uptight scientists he'd ever seen invited each other out for a night of drinks and good food at the closest restaurant – all expenses payed by the company.

A lot of people were glad to see him show up – but he only really came to see you drunk.  
He didn't have to wait long. A lot of other people were also concerning themselves with assuring your night was a good one.  
In fact, it took only a few minutes with a bodyguard on the lookout for your boss, a 'jester' to keep you distracted, and a designated drink spiker, who was apparently more committed to shadily pouring vodka into your juice when you weren't looking than he was to his actual day job as the receptionist.

It was a bit of good fun, all in all (even if your bladder cast a bold red cross into the unanimous vote). 

When the drinks finally all came down at once, there was no warning. Sans ended up bearing the weight of your stupor for the most of his night - both literally and figuratively. You were almost stuck to his hip in the last half hour of the night, because you were doing a poor job of balancing on your stilettos and neither of you had enough effort to undo the straps on them and take them off. 

The reality was he'd probably have enjoyed himself more if he got half as drunk as everyone else and ditched you to fend for yourself - but he found some sort of perverse amusement in documenting all your mishaps so he could remind you of them later. Of course, he'd kindly go on later to spare you at least some of the details, but he was still very adamant about giving you at least a quick run-down.

From what you remembered, 'funny' was the first word he used to describe you. You stumbled about a lot, and bumped into almost anything; the only thing more clumsy than your feet was your tongue – something that shaped slurs and incomplete babbles of sentences into words as if it never learnt how to speak.

'Touchy,' was the other– and he remembered the way you clung to him when he took you to the toilet and held your hair up, as you leant over it and spewed out the contents of your stomach into the bowl.

The way you'd leant on him when the night was drawing to a close and your wobbly knees needed someone for support.

“You thinking about that party?” Your voice brought him gently out of his daze.

You could tell, because he always had this peculiar face on when he thought about it, and it reappeared whenever he was about to bring the subject up.

“yep. thinking about how heavy you were when i had to drag you back home.” He'd told you this many times before.

“I couldn't even get my keys to fit in the lock,” you sniggered.

“you spent a good ten minutes with them 'til you finally found the right ones.”  
In reality, Sans got bored of waiting after five and ended up 'short-cutting' you both into your room, but that was not something you needed to know right now.

“I never did take you out on the meal I promised did I?”

“maybe next time.”

Every time this topic came up, you'd always mention that the offer was still up – but he'd wave it away:  
'don't worry 'bout it doc.'  
'better to finish planning this first doc.'  
'i don't feel that way about you doc catch a hint.'

Fair enough, he'd never worded it so boldly, but you'd understand if a monster just couldn't harbour romantic feelings towards a human. Being different species and reproducing in different ways meant there were all kinds of riff raffs and odd facts about biology that couldn't have made sense.

Besides, one of the clear cut rules of working together on a project of this scale for a company that had such a professional reputation, was that there were to be no personal connections between colleagues – and everyone else abided by that rule as if it were the Bible (but maybe they were just uptight, you liked telling yourself). 

Still, who cared. You'd already stopped eyeing the 'Code of Conduct' sign in your study with dirty looks a whole two months ago. It was progress, if anything.

“Alright," you said, "but once this whole thing is over and done with and I come back from whatever universe I get sent to, all the drinks are on my tab. So you're coming whether you like it or not, or this time I'm gonna be the one dragging you around.”

After a chuckle, he went solemn again.

“hey, you planning to get started on those papers any-time soon?”

Reluctantly, you glared at them, and found them glaring back.

“Maybe in a bit.”

They were all, very pessimistically worded. A few copies were entirely dedicated to you wording your will, and despite the fact everyone had said they were to be filled out 'just in case', it did not show through their articulation.

“i'll leave you to it then. come by my room later on, cause i got something to show you.”

He'd snagged your attention.

“You couldn't show me now could you? I'd rather do them later to be honest.”

He had already stood up from his seat – with his lab coat hanging off his back. You hadn't noticed, because he had not even sighed - while he'd normally have to dry heave his way out of a chair.  
He shrugged.

“i usually sort the mess out before i get guests but suit yourself doc.”

You'd seen his room before, so you knew what he was capable of. He'd have to try harder than that to scare you off.

“I'm not afraid of a little mess.”

“we'll see,” he chuckled.

 

You walked in silence a little ways behind him until he slowed down to be within line.  
Once you were there, his hands floated over the handle for a little, and you were reminded that installing a fingerprint security system was quite a frustrating experience for him considering his lack of actual finger pads, until he twisted it as though he never hesitated and the darkness of his study sobered you up.

He held the door open for you rather impatiently, ushering you to walk in quickly.

You could understand why.

You'd seen 'mess' before, but this was chaos; it was bad even for him.  
Books and devices lay around the floor, littered about and stacked on top of each other- with layers of dust coating them thickly like icing.  
The blinds were pulled down almost shamefully, with the only hint of light in the room coming from the corridor you were standing on, which promptly dimmed when Sans shut the door and locked it behind you.

“sorry about locking the door,” he muttered, but you were more concerned about the disorganised rubble of the room you were in.

Once your eyes adjusted to the dark, you could recognise an uncountable number of cups piled comically high on top of each other, organised like they would be in a game of Tetris and sitting on his desk. The stains inside them were weeks old at least.

The walls were not much better either, because when he finally flipped the lights on and the electricity came on, you could see the boards light up. On them were scribbled equations that had two metres in length and were scribbled out, and drawn back on, and then rubbed out, and then drawn back on in different colours, and the whole thing was a tangle of disorganised chicken scratch.

“Sans, I didn't-”

He waved you away before you continued. He knew what you were going to say. You'd been teasing him about his involvement in the project, or lack of thereof, every time he mentioned he'd be staying after hours to do some extra work.

“To empty more of the company coffee?”

The teasing was light-hearted and friendly, but after seeing this, all this – effort, your head was almost reeling in shame.

“try not to trip on anything,” he mumbled, before shouldering his way into the centre of the room and gestured for you to walk behind him.  
You echoed his footsteps, worried you'd step on an important document otherwise.

“alright, so keep in mind i'm really stickin' my neck out for you here, cause when i went and showed this to the others they looked me dead in the eye-socket and told me not to let you see it.”

You walked up beside him, where he was standing at a board with a pen in hand, ready to add some more scribbles onto the already seemingly endless expanse of his terrible handwriting.

“got it doc?”

You were apprehensive.

“Think so.”

“great, so now that that's outta the way have a look at this.”

He pointed the electronic pen up towards the board, up toward a single symbol.

“Infinity,” you noted.  
“good observation, you're doing well so far.”  
He was joking, but there were no crinkles in his eyes to indicate the joke was one he found particularly funny.  
You nudged him playfully on the shoulder anyway.

“according to all this,” he spoke – circling his hand vaguely in the direction of the equations on the board, “infinity is the amount of energy we actually need to get past the activation energy of transforming you into code formation.”

You were confused, because you'd done your own research and had found something completely different. The energy required to pass that barrier was shorthand 1.987x10^16 petajoules.  
An amount christened specifically with your name, because you were the one that discovered it.

“You've lost me. We had a confirmed tangible account for that activation energy, why is it suddenly infinity?”

He took a deep breath out.

“i know it's easy to grow attached to numbers when they've got your name plastered on them, but the maths in the equation you used made some real quick assumptions about the way monster magic worked. you're gonna have to trust me on this doc, i redid the work by myself a couple of times and then a couple of more times with other scientists. it was wrong.”

Bubbles of annoyance frothed up in your chest, threatening to spill. It was only your good nature as a scientist that kept you from spitting them out at him.

“And no-one else thought to tell me?”

“i'm telling you now.”

You heaved a sigh of frustration, and let the anger in your voice escape with it into the air.

“There's gotta be something,” you mumbled under your breath. Your eyes skimmed over the equations on the board, and once again found that it was almost impossible to make any sense of them.

“to be honest, the actual number wasn't infinity, but even in standard form and with a new unit for energy my hand got tired at about six hundred digits in.”

You tried to frown at him, but you couldn't hold the expression for more than a few seconds.

At least he had the decency to shift uncomfortably in his spot before your roared with laughter.  
In desperation, you leant against a column of books to support yourself, but you they couldn't take your weight and toppled very quickly, taking you down with a thump and sending a cloud of dust into the air. Sans managed to pull a grin that looked vaguely concerned - until you continued laughing, even louder then before.  
He let the smile grow warm instead

Once you were done, he stuck out his hand for you to take, and you took it without reservation.

"Sorry," you uttered, turning around to sort out the pile of books you had just capsized.

"don't worry bout them. i think they really tie the whole room together," he chuckled, and it made you so happy to see his smile touch upon the edges of his eyes that you returned it with a sincere grin. You sorted out the couple you were holding before turning back to face him and dusting yourself off.

"either way..." he started, taking his hands out of his pockets and letting the smile on his face slowly disappear, "there's not nearly enough energy in our whole universe for whatever that thing wants to do."

You looked up at the ominous scrawls of writing above you.

"What about if you apply Newton's third law to monster magic?"

It took him a second to register your words, but he winced quite visibly with his shoulders once they sunk in. He gestured for you to hold on, and after a minute or two of lazily lifting pieces of paper around he found what he was was looking for; a small black moleskin journal.  
He held it out to you.

"skip to the last page," he said, and you did just that. Your eyes centered on the middle for a little while, trying to decipher his schoolboy hieroglyphics rather inefficiently. Once you were done, you read it again so it would make sense in context. Then you stared some more. And more. And again - until you were sure you'd bore a hole into the page with just your incredulous glare.

"What?"

Sans didn't meet your confused glance, choosing to look off somewhere to the side - where that pile of mugs looked suspiciously close to falling off the desk.

"yeah, it doesn't really make any sense," he said - stuffing his hands back into his pockets.

"That's - one way to put it."

On the lined paper at the centre of the page sat a number underlined thrice, and then circled twice over in red pen. You glanced over the writing in the book, and sure it made mathematical sense but -

"Zero joules?" You whispered, more to yourself.

"nada," he answered.

"We don't need any energy to send me to a parallel universe?" You tried again.

Sans shrugged.

"that's what the maths says."

You waited a little while in silence, and the lights above you hummed dutifully to fill it in. A blank hole on the page in the shape of a messy, open zero glared at you with almost intended malice - as you played with the corners of the page, rubbing them between the pads of your fidgety fingers.


	4. Chapter 4

It had to be significantly past midnight hours now. Both you and Sans had been too focused on your work to look up at the clock, but the complete silence in the complex was enough to let you know that everyone had cleared out a long time ago.

It was just the two of you.

The equations on the board were moulding together, intertwining with the static in your vision until they were nothing more than a mess of colours. Your thoughts too, were proving to be more difficult to discern with each passing minute – until they tumbled into criss-crossed hatches that refused to form anything that wasn't a pillow and a bed.

Besides, the chance that working through the entire mathematical process a third time would bring a new result was almost null from the very beginning.

“Maybe...” You edged conversation. The silence had been a lengthy one, and kicking it out of its reign was an action that nicked at least a good three deep breaths. “Maybe we should start packing up? I don't think my head can process any of this-” you said, swiping your hand towards nothing in particular, “anymore anyway.”

It took him a second, but he jerked awake and blinked twice before scratching the top of his head.

“sorry what was that? i blanked there.”

“I'm just – saying it might be best if we left this for tomorrow.”

“huh.” He nodded, but it was easy to see he wasn't big on the idea. His face turned upwards to judge the position of the hands on the clock above him, and his expression met with a gentle scowl. When he attempted to continue, he was briefly cut out with a long, drawn-out yawn. “alright, sorry doc. i've been keepin' you here for quite a while haven't i? howzabout you sleep on it and come back tomorrow, hm?”

Sans was fiddling with sheets of paper, fumbling about with a scientific calculator. He was retyping the same arithmetic equation over and over, pressing the equals sign as if he was expecting to get a different answer.

“Are you not going with?”  
“why? you scared of the dark or some'in?”

“I just don't want you to be alone for the rest of the night.”

It felt awkward to say it, so you could tell the silence that came afterwards would be a stew of unpleasant emotions. Sans did not seem to care much, because he let you sit in it for a while before continuing.

“i appreciate the worry doc but i can take care of myself.”

This was not a subject you were willing to drop so easily.

“What about your brother?”

You knew it was a hit below the belt even before the lazy sigh snaked its way through his teeth. Still, you doubted sleep would have came easily to you that night had you left him here.

“Would he not be a little lonely?”

Sans was thumbing the edges of the keys on his calculator gently enough to not press them in.

“alright, you win. give me a few more minutes.”

You noticed that despite his words, he wasn't budging from his seat. It pecked at the remnants of your good mood a little, but you decided to walk it off.

“I'm gonna grab my coat.”

He didn't reply – but you were too tired at this point to even care. When you stood up and walked to the door, there were a brief few seconds wherein you were fiddling with the handle until you realised it was locked.

The only excuse you could give is the fact your hazy mind was in shambles, but maybe that still didn't explain why you knocked on the door twice, as if someone would be waiting for you on the other side.

“who's there?” he asked, and his voice was laced with enthusiasm.

Normally, you'd shake your head and grab the keys, but there was something in his tone that made you want to answer him.

“Keanu.”

“keanu who?”

For a second, you were worried you'd lost the punchline – until your words tumbled out effortlessly.

“Keanu open the door please?”

You were sure you'd laugh if you were not so tired, but the half asleep daze in your eyes could do little even in terms of pinching your cheeks, let alone moving your tongue. The lazy muscle sat at the bedrock of your mouth, pushed against the inside of your incisors and refused to move one bit. Your lungs worked overtime to compensate, and you ended up letting out a sort of breathy snort, that was more akin to the sound you'd make before breaking into tears as opposed to laughing.

A cold clinking sound from below kindly let you know that Sans had thrown the keys over. You used them to open the door before stepping out, and kicking them back in his direction.

Once the door shut behind you, all you heard was silence, bar the steady shuffling of your feet towards your room. There was something on your mind, and it was steadily moving you in short-cuts to not your own room, but into the prototype room, where the first trials had been performed.

The room was a little dusty now, because since it's first use there was not much studying to do about it. Everything had worked how it was supposed to, and everything that needed to be checked had been thoroughly evaluated, until you could word for word remember what was written on your little clipboards and company computers.

Now it served more or less as a trophy room.

You remembered clearly that four things were sent away, and in both chronological order and of ascending mass they were: a particle of light (to start us off, they'd said), a relatively heavy perfect sphere (with a perfectly smooth surface to check for any damage; of which there was thankfully none) and a small, immaculate pot of various plants – each harder or easier to keep alive than the other - and each of which had come back completely untouched.

There was even a lab rat sent out, going by an affectionate name you'd long since forgotten. The little rodent had appeared in headlines, being tagged as the first ever conscious thing to go to another dimension. You supposed his five minutes of fame had been lost on him, but at least he was rewarded with some good grub.

From what little you remembered, he died a little prematurely, but it was nothing that couldn't be shaken down to stress.

All the objects apart from the particle of light (this was replaced by a bronze tablet with a lengthy paragraph of writing engraved onto it) were in trophy cabinets, shut with a lock and laser protected, if the rumours were anything to go by.

Your fingers trailed across the glass.

After they were sent away, they all came back – at exactly the point when the 'decoder' section of the structure was turned on, and they reappeared in the same spot they 'teleported' away from, not worse for wear or anything.

Adjusting their mass to your own gave you the amount of energy you'd written off to the outside world as the final value – with your own name proudly stamped onto it like a badge of honour you wore with pride.

Sounds fantastic. Chapter closed. The end; finito. Except, no.

Now Sans was saying that the same logic would not apply to you, for reasons that rested somewhere deep within the bowels of the more complicated aspects of 'magic', that you couldn't even begin to wrap your head around.

No human could – really. You supposed that if it was possible to understand, it'd follow the laws of physics, and then it wouldn't be magic; there was just found frustration to be found in the fact that dealing with something that an entire team of the smartest people on earth couldn't understand meant there had to be a good charade played between how knowledgeable the public thought you were on the subject, and what little of Sans' spiels you could all collectively actually make sense of (which was a depressingly small amount).

“leave it to me, it's intuitive to monsters and based on souls and emotions,” was what you'd capped your understanding on, because as soon as he started preaching about how the emotional and conscious value of each soul relative to its qualities couldn't be measured in units, you'd stopped. The scientific side of your brain had long since decided to jump off a bridge, so it was decided the whole thing would be best left to Sans and a couple of other monsters that knew what they were doing.

Still - was the value of your soul really that much that it had an almost infinite amount of energy? Humans had such fragile lives, so how was it even possible that they'd had so much will in them? Was that even the right word? You were sick of thinking.

Turning on your heel, you ran the pad of your finger along a black panel on the wall, and the lights switched off almost immediately.

Groggily, you picked up your listless gazes and briefly came into your own room, plucking your lab coat from the back of it and returning with it under your hand. The fabric was itchy and uncomfortable. It tagged at your skin even when you were just carrying it over you shoulder, like now.

Funnily enough, you'd never actually had a problem with wearing them at first, but Sans seemed to hate them so much that it rubbed off onto you. What was it he said about them now?  
“we're engineers, not chemists.”  
Yeah, something like that.

Either way, you'd only seen him wearing it during busy hours, and it came off as soon as the two of you were alone. The man wasn't afraid to break company rules, it seemed – and you wink-wink nudged-nudged that statement down into the gutter before it left your mind.

Once you'd arrived at his office, you rapped twice at the door, before trying the handle. You found not pleasure in finding out he'd cheekily locked the doors on you.

There was some mumbling coming from behind them, and although the temptation to yell at him from behind the door could be sensibly measured in zettagrams, you'd resisted it long enough to pick up on his words.

“sorry doc, but i dunno where my keys are. start walking home without me and, i'll ketchup to ya.”

You rolled your eyes, because god-damn if that wasn't the worst excuse you'd from him for at least the past three months.

“Find 'em. I can wait,” you said, slumping against the door.

There was shuffling.

“think they fell round here.”

You heard metal clinking and started getting up.

“nah wait that's just my old pen.”

You slumped back down again. There was a little more movement, after which you'd heard a familiar thump, which you could only guess was the sound of another column of books meeting the floor.

“whoops,” you'd heard him say, and snorted. You wanted to tell him to hurry up, but you were tired, and frankly this was a nice little sit down after your brisk walk around the facility.

“yeah i'll hurry.”

Your brows furrowed. You hadn't thought that Sans' powers extended into mind reading, but you supposed you'd have to scribble it onto the list. You leant your head against the door, and listened in – to find the muffled sliding of his feet against the floor was coming from one direction, very near the door.

Had he even got up from his chair? Your mouth almost gaped open in disbelief. How ballsy could you be?

“Sans get up right now! You know I'm not leaving until you open this door right? I'll sleep on this cold hard floor till morning, and if I get sore muscles you bet the first person I'll be complaining to is Marie!”

Marie would get him rolling. She was a scary woman despite her small stature, and could send anyone to be fired with only a few weeks and a couple of sheets of paperwork.  
That was to say, she was reasonable, but Sans was already in the peripherals of her eagle sharp stares. There was only so much harmless pranking and gentle rule prodding that could be done in a place where most people were too scared to go without their lab coats on lunch breaks.

“found 'em.” 

The long exhale you'd done had to be a record breaker in some way, because you counted at least ten seconds before all the air from your lungs had depleted.

There was a clink.

“shoot, dropped them again.”

Oh this was rich. You'd never been one to snap, but you were just so damn tired – and looking after this insomniac shit-head was nowhere near the top of your priority list.  
Therefore, you were not surprised when you started bashing at the door, swearing at him to get the damn thing open before the less sensible part of your tired brain tore the thing to pieces and snapped his neck in a fit.

You stopped once you were out of breath and your knuckles were red, to hear him speak.

“sorry doc, dunno where my keys are. start walking home without me and, i'll ketchup to ya.”

He just? What?  
The grim reaper must have payed a visit when you weren't looking, because the anticipatory silence that fell about you was absolutely deathly. You leaned against the door again.

The sound was still coming from the same place. The same singular, spot, co-ordinate, position. The tone of his voice was identical.  
You'd just been pranked.

“think they fell round here.”

You'd just spent the last ten minutes getting angry at a recording.  
You glared at the door, half tempted to use it as a punching bag again, before deciding against it, and walking calmly out to the front entrance, where – innocently enough, Sans was waiting.

From what you could see behind the windows, the dark outside was crassly uninviting, and despite the fact his comment about you being afraid of the dark was more annoying than accurate, you were still glad you wouldn't be alone when stepping out into it.  
You were quiet when you walked to be in line with him.

Outside, you saw the small silhouettes of bare trees grazing against the sky. They reached – fruitlessly extending their fingers out to its infinite end like little children, trying to touch the grave, sombre face of their mother. Curiously, spokes of grass pointed out from beneath the earth, waiting patiently for the coming of morning so they could soak up the sun. Somewhere off in the distance, a sharp wind whistled in a wild frenzy.

“what took you so long?” 

Hands, tucked laxly into the pockets of a large, blue parka he was wearing - he looked at you, and it took a moment of self control to convince yourself not to kick his sly grin into his mouth and excuse yourself from his company.  
Instead, you said nothing as you swiped a key-card and firmly pressed a fingerprint down onto a panel.

The doors slid open, and he awkwardly followed you out.

“I was helping you find your keys, remember?” You said, and smiled despite yourself, once you'd both adjusted into a steady rhythm with your steps.

The night was too lonely to walk in silence.


	5. Chapter 5

Your night was a quiet one.  
Not that you'd have particularly minded if it wasn't, because by the time your head hit the pillow you were already asleep. When you woke, you'd judged that there were at least a good four hours of sleep in your slumber, which you found it hard to be grateful for when you were positive the birds that screamed you awake in the early hours must have had at least eight.

The drive back to the office was not much nicer either, because air traffic had been particularly nasty since some idiots down the main road decided it would be fun to turn off autopilot and drive their hover-cabs up on the airline – where the bullet trains were also enjoying the first few busy hours of the day. There was no crash, but you were glad to hear they were caught, because it was their fault you'd have to miss your morning coffee.

Once you'd arrived, you groggily parked the car a little sideways, but found it was too hard to motivate yourself enough to get back in and fix it. It was left angled slightly clockwise, just enough to be peeking in on another space.  
At the time you'd assumed it not to matter much; there were never enough cars to fill all the parking spaces anyway – but you'd be damned if it wasn't just another little annoyance to make your day that little bit worse.

The receptionist waved your lateness off with a smile, which – you supposed was a nice little buffer from having your morning completely tattered into shambles. At least before you'd have to sink your teeth into all those equations and science notes again.

There was no detour to your room. Your mind was definitely not in the right place for it, but straight away, you stopped by Sans' office and knocked firmly on his door. After a little shuffling, he came to and stood right outside of it.

“is it urgent?” he asked.  
“It's just me Sans, open up.”

There was a little quiet pause.

“what's the password?”

You felt your skin ripple with goosebumps before he even finished his sentence. Were you in the mood for this? You couldn't really decide.  
This was either going to make your morning a little better or dig another foot in for the grave.

“I've got Marie on speed dial.”

“ok.”

Make it a little better, you decided.  
Once Sans finished fiddling with the lock, he held the door open for you with his foot and stared behind you, hastily looking out for the appearance of anyone he would not like to clue in on the state of his office.  
You knew the drill at this point, so you rushed in quickly, shutting the door as soon as you were in.

There was nothing new to mention about the state of his room. It seemed nicer by a margin maybe – but you'd chalked it up the fact that even through the tightly shut blinds there were still spokes of light brave enough to stream into the office.  
“got held up this morning?” The question seemed requisite.

“Traffic.”

Once you'd found your notes from last night and settled down onto the floor, a comfortable silence had grown around like vines, clambering their way up through the pristine white walls and the messy smart-boards full of scribbles.

It was only after a few minutes of it that you noticed a calendar tacked onto a wall by the front page with (what you presumed was) countless wads of blue-tack.  
On it - as customary for calendars was the date of the month and days numbered neatly into rows. What seemed out of place however, was the fact only one day had any notes on it, and you'd perceived with a somewhat premonitory fear that it was a date a week from now.

Not only that, it was circled, crossed out and written over with different kinds of pen – most of the words scrawled over in capital letters nonetheless.

You squinted to read it, and your mouth formed the shapes your head was forming almost unconsciously.

'CONVINCE THEM' – was all you could see.

You shuddered.

“Sans,” your voice wavered.

“hm?”

“Let's assume worst case, that we don't get to the bottom of this, nobody else believes you and I still go through with it, what would happen?”

This was a question you were scared to ask. You were pretty sure it showed too, because there was no way that his pointedly judgemental and much too lengthy stare did not see your hands shaking.

“well, letsee doc. if we assume that coding you is gonna take more energy than this universe can afford, we can come to bout three, maybe four conclusions.”  
“uno -” he spoke, holding up a single skeletal finger, “says we code your physical matter but your soul is left out of the equation. to be straight, i got no idea how a human deals without a soul - but i had a monster for comparison and let me tell you - it wasn't pretty.”

Some footsteps were busy outside, walking about and throwing your off your scent. You were almost grateful for the distraction.

“still, bets on the case, that scenario is still probs the best we're gonna get. after that, we get either part of you being coded, so all that's left is a head or something; all of you being coded and then not coded back, so you're left out in space; the whole universe collapsing in on itself gradually; or the whole universe collapsing on itself really really really quickly.”

It seemed like he was exaggerating a little, but prodding him further required a courage that you simply did not own at the moment.

The most you could really muster up the energy for was very loud exhale.  
“This day just gets worse and worse,” was all you said.  
Sans' laugh was a little deadpan.

Coffee came a while later, at lunch. A mutual decision to sit apart from each other sent you both to different ends of the Community Hall, where the majority of the more relaxed workers had already settled down.

The face that you recognised first belonged to one of the receptionist. You carried your steps down to him and his group of friends, being sure that they wouldn't mind you taking the spare seat.  
They didn't.

However, it had still taken a few awkward seconds and a number of sneaky glances at name tags to get conversations rolling from your side – which alerted you less than subtly that maybe you'd been spending a too much time cooped up in Sans' room – muttering curses to yourself when you couldn't apply his explanations for magic into your formulas for the ninth time that day. 

“What have you been up to the past two days?” You heard someone speak. Blonde man, elderly, and broad in stature – you recognised him as the man in charge of sorting out emails. Anton - from what you could read off his name tag.

“Just making sure all the equations are adding up,” you replied. 'Starting from scratch because everything is wrong' was a statement you couldn't quite fit into the small talk of the situation.

He seemed sceptical, so you were worried for a brief second that he was one of the people Sans clued in on the issue only to be returned with a complete lack of support and a vow of silence.  
It struck you sometime after the slim woman beside him spoke that Sans was probably referring to the Directors, not the clueless receptionists huddled before you  
“Oh I'm sure you were,” she cooed. Vera was her name, you noticed. “They must have been really hard equations too, no wonder you needed extra help on them.”

“Oh I see what this is about.”  
These people were in it for the gossip. You couldn't blame them – this place was worse than the middle of the woods in rainy season (which was to say, everywhere you'd tried to look for signs of life you'd find sticks in the mud). The poor sods had probably thrived off the little drama brought about by the infamous party for the last few months, but the stretch home had admittedly brought a dry spell of absolute boredom.  
It was more than clear to you now, they needed something juicy to sink their teeth into.

“But I'm sorry to disappoint you; Sans and I have done nothing but work on the project.”

The whole table groaned in disappointment apart from Vera. Her unshakable faith in this imaginary relationship could honestly have impressed you if it were not so borderline creepy.

“You've never even thought about it?”

“I honestly doubt he'd be interested.”

“Really now?”

A quiet silence gave you a little time to sip on your drink.

“Really.”

She'd suddenly grown in confidence at least threefold. A smile so knowing it could pass as evil took residence on her freckly face, looking all the more out of place when she gave it company in the form of a satisfied arch in her eyebrows.

Her gaze was looking past you, to the other side of the hall.

“Cause I would say he's looking mighty interested in our conversation right about now.”

You'd swallowed the drink down, and it made an awkwardly loud gulp.

“Really now?” You ask. You were not partial to turning around to confirm it for yourself, because hell if you were going to let these people think you cared.

“Really.” She said.

Everyone was staring in anticipation, so it was only with great restraint you managed to stop your head from twisting around to look behind you. The only thing that helped you take your mind off it was the coffee in front of you, but the longer you spent staring at it the more obvious it was you were just using it as an anchor for you gaze.

Patiently, you waited until all of them got bored. It came soon enough, when Anton broke into a conversation about why you came so late – and Danny (the man you recognised as both the receptionist and the man responsible for your infinitely refilling alcohol glass) jumped on the gun to rant about people messing with the public transport lane of the air traffic.

Your head turned so discretely to the left you could not even stop yourself – but it was enough to recognise Sans, who was sat with a bunch of his co-workers at one of the further tables.  
Of course, he was not looking at you.

Maybe it would have annoyed you less if you hadn't seen Vera smiling from the edges of your peripherals.

When the end of lunch rolled about, you were almost glad to see it go. Sans still hadn't eating however, so you asked him politely for his keys once he was finished with his conversation (or joke – if the way that the people on his table were all smiling at him was anything to go by).

“go nuts doc,” he told you. He seemed a little uneasy, as if he still wanted to say something. Deciding to ignore it, you thanked him and started walking out.

Abruptly, the sound cut off and you stopped. You were almost worried you'd went deaf for a second, until your brain caught up and realised no-one was moving, either.

“just...” he started. His voice was much louder now, when the chatters of the people from tables away were not intertwining with his words.

“don't work too hard ok? gotta save your energy for the big day.”

“Will do Sans, thanks.”

“you'll need it,” he said.

Oh, energy.  
Pun intended, you supposed.

Working alone was unreasonably boring. You'd suspected so much would be true of course, but the extent to which it was right was almost enough to convince you to call it a day on the spot. There came a time during about the tenth page of the 'Introduction to Monster Magic' where you'd look up at the clock almost every ten seconds.  
This continued for a while, during which every other set of footsteps that were shuffling from the outside would be hopefully attributed to Sans, until he finally knocked on the door to indicate he'd like to be let in.

“Password,” you yelled from your spot.

There was a little pause.

“password.”

“Your password is password?”

Another skipped beat.

“oh. guess it is.”

He walked in as soon as you opened the door. His steps were tentative, and he spent a second or two just surveying the area – curiously eyeing the floors with some sort of distaste. The lab coat he was carrying under his arm was dropped unceremoniously onto a pile of papers on the floor.

“wow doc, you really should clean this place up more. it's a mess.”

“You should have seen he place yesterday. Some numbskull came around and knocked all the books to the floor.”

“sounds rough buddy.”

“Absolutely.”

You wanted to hear the sound of his voice, but your brain was fried from working all day – even with the coffee break. There were no topics you could think of.

“still…” he spoke again, and you were a little more relieved because of it than you were comfortable with. “from what i know those towers were pretty high.”

You'd almost forgotten how tired you were, until you blinked for just a second too long and your eyelids could barely unstick.

“you've only got yourshelf to blame.”

A laugh. It seemed like yours, but you wouldn't have been able to remember with how bad you were distracted by the tempting lull of just falling asleep on the floor.

“doc, you still awake?”

There was just a little more of the day to wade through, were the only words that kept you from putting your head down onto the floor and letting your conscious dissipate from your head.

“Barely.”

“hey, how bout you sign out for the rest of the day? i'm sure they'd let ya' off. being here after all your work is done is just a formality anyhow.”

“That sounds tempting.”

“you're not really doing anything productive anyway.”

If you had felt more petty, you would have mentioned that reading through the first few chapters of the unreasonably complicated monster magic book was still technically work – even if you had nothing physical to show for it.

Instead, and with a fleeting spike of motivation, you picked yourself up from the floor and wiped your backside off any dirt that might have been on the floor you'd been sat on for so long.

“Are you sure you're gonna be alright? I could just get myself some coffee instead.”

“i'll espresso myself more clearly, coffee can't keep you up forever, and i don't wanna have to drag you back home when you fall asleep on some important files or somethin'.”

“Harsh.”

“i'd go for honest.”

The first thing you heard in your head was your own good nature telling you that you should leave. Now was the time. The conversation was over; sans had made his intentions clear – but you stayed; because you felt like you still had something to say.

“I'd go for... thanks.” (Was that all? You didn't think so.) “Because I'm thankful that you're still doing all this work when everyone else has stopped.”

Sans was very still, almost up to the point where you thought you had embarrassed him.

“no problem.”

But there was more.

“Thanks for, everything you shouldn't have told me but did.”

“again doc, no problem.”

You wanted to continue.

“And most of all - thanks for looking out for me.”

There was still something else – some gentle distaste rolling around on the tip of your tongue and the clench of your fingers. Small words that left a hole of dissatisfaction bigger than the sum of their parts.

“you done?”

You weren't sure you were.

“I'll see you tomorrow.”

“yeah. now skeledaddle.”

There was still a discontent in walking away then - but at this point the polite voice in your head was screaming obscenities about you very clearly overstaying your welcome – so you did not think about the other voice telling you to stay, until you'd stepped outside the building and felt the sun on your face.


End file.
